Juventus v. Serie A: Can we still win the scudetto?

By: alessio | March 30th, 2008

For those living under a rock, last weekend Juventus blew the Scudetto race wide-open with a beautiful 2-1 win over archrivals Inter. If anything, 2-1 flattered Inter….Del Boy was in phenomenal form but just wasn’t finishing well. The question now is….is the Scudetto race down to Inter v. Roma, or does Juve have a chance?

I’ve made my distaste for Goal.com well aware. It has some good articles but most of it is stupid transfer gossip no better than Tribal Football. (If you don’t know TF, DO NOT SEARCH FOR IT) That said, the Italian version is much better…it has some real analysis and discussion. They wrote an article today which asked if Juventus was still in the Scudetto race.

So that’s the question: Can we?
Inter’s schedule-
4/6- @ Atalanta
4/13- v. Fiorentina
4/20- @ Torino
4/27- v. Cagliari
5/4- v. Milan
5/11- @ Siena
5/18- @ Parma

Juve (aka the good guys) schedule-
4/6- @ Palermo
4/13- v. Milan
4/16- v. Parma (likely)
4/20- @ Atalanta
4/27- v. Lazio
5/4- @ Siena
5/11- v. Catania
5/18- @ Sampdoria

Roma’s inherent weakness is becoming more and more clear. They simply are not consistent enough to win the Scudetto. I hope they prove me wrong, because I’d love to see Inter lose this one. But Roma have thrown away opportunity after opportunity to close the gap. I don’t know what it is about Roma’s DNA that makes them unable to just finish, whether a game or a string of results.

Examining Inter’s schedule, there are several potential slipups. Atalanta have proven that they can cause upsets, despite being one of the yo-yo teams of Serie A, as evidenced by their loss to Torino, and then thumping Empoli a few weeks later. Not to mention this, of course. Earlier in the season, we struggled to beat the less-evil Nerazzurri until Pavel Nedved made one of his trademark strafing runs.

Fiorentina are an obvious choice for a potential upset, as well as Milan. Milan are obviously struggling badly, but as the most recent Roman derby shows, recent form doesn’t matter in heated derbies. If it hadn’t been for a classic Dida howler, Milan could have won.

Cagliari are one of the most in-form teams in Serie A right now, and if you told me a few months ago I’d be saying that, I would have punched you in the face and told you to buy me a beer. It is a very good possibility that they could draw Inter, at least. They most recently drew both Juventus and Roma…….why not Inter merda? Toro are an outside shot to draw….they are the draw specialists of Serie A, maybe Recoba could kick his former employer’s ass and maybe prove he’s not completely a worthless sack of shit.

Assuming (optimistically!) Inter draw Cagliari, Atalanta, and Fiorentina….and lose the derby of Milan, they would finish with 81 points.

If Juventus won all 8 games, we would finish with 82 in probably the greatest Serie A upsets ever. It’s a possibility, if our boys in black-and-white focus on every game like a “cup final” like they say they will. We can beat all those teams if we focus. The fixture that worries me the most is the away game at Sampdoria, on the last day of the season. Last game, in Genoa, possibly with Cassano…it would be one hell of a tricky game. The Bianconeri need to ignore the rest of Serie A, and just win our games. If Inter further implodes, we could afford to slip up a bit, but we can’t depend on other teams to work for us….it’s time to take destiny in our own hands.